At 10 a.m. Wednesday, the normal cacophony of dispatchers and police officers over the Boulder emergency radio airwaves will cease for a moment of silence, as it has every April 16 for the past two decades.

For the Boulder Police Department, the day will mark the passing of 20 years since a routine call sent officer Beth Haynes to a domestic violence report shortly after midnight April 16, 1994, just a few minutes before her shift ended.

"She was the kind of cop you find behind every wheel, and it was the kind of call we get every night," said Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, who at the time was a sergeant in the Boulder Police Department.

What started out as a seemingly routine call turned into a violent shootout that claimed the life of Haynes, 26. The death shocked a city that hadn't lost an officer in the line of duty since 1973.

"It's a dangerous job, but Boulder seemed, at least up until that point, a less dangerous place," said police Deputy Chief David Hayes. "It just didn't seem real. ... Things like that didn't happen in Boulder."

Boulder officers killed in the line of duty

Beth Haynes, 26: Killed on April 16, 1994, in a shootout with a suspect in a domestic violence incident.

Gary Mills, 26: Fatally shot Aug. 25, 1973, by an intoxicated man while responding to a domestic disturbance call. The shooting was unrelated to the call.

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Raymond McMaster, 30: Fatally shot Nov. 9, 1958, while pursuing suspects fleeing the scene of a holdup at a cafe.

Elmer Cobb, 45: Fatally shot Nov. 19, 1923. His death remains unsolved, although it was suspected to be connected to bootleggers.

Chief Lawrence Bass: Killed on March 19, 1920, in a collision between his police car and a fire engine while responding to a fire.

The shootout

Haynes was born in Kiowa, a small town of about 700 in Elbert County, and after graduating from the University of Northern Colorado she joined the Boulder Police Department in 1990.

"I knew her when she first got hired," said Hayes, who at the time was a traffic commander. "Beth was quiet, unassuming, but a very, very genuinely nice person. She came from a small town, and I remember the sheriff down there had recommended her and knew her growing up as a little girl and a young lady. Never a bad thing to say about anybody. She loved being a police officer in Boulder."

The scene of the 1994 murder-suicide that resulted in the death of police officer Beth Haynes and a suicidal man on Eisenhower Drive in Boulder. (David R. Jennings/Camera file photo)

Haynes had been on patrol duty for about three months on the night she was dispatched to the domestic violence call at an apartment complex on Eisenhower Drive. A woman named Libby Guyse was holed up in her apartment with her two young children and said her former fiance, Ali Kalamy, 36, had threatened to kill himself and said he was "taking others with him."

The call came in just before 1 a.m., when Haynes' shift would have ended.

"Beth was almost home that night," Hayes said. "It was a late call, and there was just nobody to send."

When Haynes arrived at 1590 Eisenhower Drive, she encountered Kalamy outside the apartment armed with a 9 mm semi-automatic gun in his waistband. A witness at the scene told police Haynes got out of her car, stood between the open car door and the cruiser and told Kalamy to stand down, to which Kalamy replied, "What are you going to do? Shoot me?"

The witness went inside the building, under Haynes' order, and shortly after, he heard the gunshots begin.

Haynes ran from her car to take cover behind another vehicle nearby. Kalamy ran and jumped onto the vehicle she was hiding behind, and before Haynes could roll under the car, he fired down on her. Kalamy hit Haynes — who was wearing a protective vest — in the head, chest and hand. Haynes hit Kalamy in the chest and leg.

Just before the shooting began, then-officer Barry Hartkopp was on patrol on University Hill with officer Mike Ready when he heard Haynes' domestic call come over the air and started heading to the scene.

The funeral procession for Boulder policewoman Beth Haynes, who was the city's last officer killed in the line of duty. (Camera file photo)

"When we got to 30th and Arapahoe we heard her come on the radio, and we couldn't tell what she was saying, but I could tell she was in significant distress," said Hartkopp, who is now a sergeant. "Right after that, we heard dispatch air that shots had been fired."

When Hartkopp and Ready pulled up to the scene, they heard Sgt. Robert Thomas Jr., who had also been en route to provide cover for the domestic call and arrived after Haynes had been shot.

"Immediately I heard Sgt. Thomas yelling that he needed cover because he needed to get to Beth Haynes," Hartkopp said.

Using cars as cover, Hartkopp, Ready and Thomas made their way over to where Haynes was still lying.

"She was not moving whatsoever," Hartkopp said. "We rolled her over, and Sgt. Thomas started checking vitals on her. It was obvious at that point that she was seriously injured."

Along with Gardner Mendenhall, an off-duty paramedic who lived nearby and realized what was happening, Thomas and Hartkopp called for an ambulance and began tending to Haynes' injuries as Ready — armed with a shotgun — provided cover.

"At that time was when we started hearing shots being fired somewhere to the south," Hartkopp said.

Police would later discover that a mortally wounded Kalamy had made his way to his ex-fiance's apartment and made one last attempt to shoot his way through the door. When that failed, Kalamy turned the gun on himself and committed suicide as responding officers closed in on him.

'She probably saved their lives'

Hartkopp said his training took over while he was helping Haynes and trying to track down Kalamy, but with Kalamy dead and Haynes in an ambulance, what had just happened began to sink in.

"Once there were no other tasks, that's when everything just kind of set in and I started reflecting on what actually took place," said Hartkopp, who went to college with Haynes and joined the force just a year ahead of her. "It was definitely a surreal mood when we all gathered back up on scene."

Hartkopp said about 15 to 20 minutes after that is when the news came in that Haynes — who was not showing any vital signs when she was transported from the scene — had died.

Officer Trudy Hunter was helping block traffic when she heard a commander air the news.

"It was a pretty emotional time for everybody that was on duty then," Hunter said. "It was pretty intense, pretty emotional."

Hartkopp said he, Thomas and Ready met up at the police station, but none of them could go home.

"Nobody really wanted to be alone," he said. "After that shift ended, we all decided to go to a (Colorado) Rockies game together. We wanted to be with everybody else. Every once in a while, someone would talk about it for a little bit. It was our support group."

Hartkopp said when the anniversary of Haynes' death comes around every year, he is taken back to that night.

"We really tried to get to her and help her," he said. "But I always wish we could have done more."

At the time of the shooting, Pelle was a member of the shoot team that investigates all officer-involved shootings and was called that night to a scene he said he hopes never to experience again.

"There were a lot of distraught people," Pelle said. "The first responders, the police officers who actually heard the gunshots and chased after the suspects ... . There was a lot of trauma."

Even 20 years later, Pelle said he still remembers the details of the scene: Bullet striations across the top of the cars where Haynes and Kalamy exchanged fire; footprints and a blood trail Kalamy left behind when he "bull-rushed" Haynes' position and jumped up onto the car she had taken cover behind; Haynes' service weapon stovepiped, an empty casing stuck in the ejection port rendering the gun useless.

"Things like that are heart-stopping," Pelle said of the jammed gun. "At the moment he shot her, she was unable to return fire. She was trying to crawl under the car, and he essentially executed her."

But the few shots Haynes got off before her gun jammed found their mark. Pelle said her shots punctured Kalamy's lungs and severely injured one of his legs. Pelle said blood evidence indicated the wounds were enough to stop Kalamy from entering the apartment where his ex-fiance and her two children were hiding.

"I believe this with all my heart still," Pelle said. "I believe that Beth Haynes disabled him to the point where he was unable to kill his ex-fiance and those two children. She probably saved their lives."

Remembering Haynes

About 1,800 people gathered at Rocky Mountain Christian Church in Niwot for Haynes' funeral service, including the entire Boulder police force as other departments covered their jurisdiction.

For Pelle, the funeral marked the first time he was able to truly reflect on what had happened after working the investigation.

"The funeral was the first time that week that I had any time off," Pelle said. "When you sit down and take a breath, the reality of her family and her fiance and all of the really broken-up officers hits you. It becomes very emotional."

For Hayes, the funeral itself was a blur, but he does recall the procession to the cemetery in Thornton, a line of squad cars that took 30 minutes to pass any given point on its route.

"I remember people who lived here or people who happened to be here standing on the side of the road with flags and signs," Hayes said. "If it doesn't seem real, it certainly seems real at that point. The people were there for Beth but I think also the department."

Added Pelle, "People went out of their way that day to come out and show their appreciation for Beth's sacrifice and the police force in general."

'We don't teach officers to go to war'

In the aftermath of Haynes' death, officials began to look into the circumstances that led to the shootout.

It was discovered that the dispatcher who took the call failed to warn Haynes that Kalamy might have a weapon, something that Hunter said was shocking for the officers to hear.

"We're putting our lives on the line every day, and sometimes every call, and dispatch has a huge responsibility of getting the correct information and getting it out to us," Hunter said. "Since that happened, dispatch has done a lot better job getting us the information we need. I've also learned that if you are not getting the information, you ask dispatch. A lot of officers do that now because of Beth."

There was also discussion within the department about why Haynes was the only officer on the scene, when domestic violence calls are typically handled by at least two officers.

"That night, there just wasn't anybody else to send," Hayes said. "We don't staff for peaks and valleys. We staff for what we think is the call load for the day of the week and the time of day, and we don't always get that right."

Then, there were those in the department who looked at what Haynes could have done differently.

"There was a tremendous amount of discussion the first couple of years after the case," Pelle said. "When someone dies, you sort of want to know what they did wrong. It's sort of a defense mechanism, to analyze these things all the time. You try to figure out what mistakes she made that could have changed the outcome."

But Hayes said he thinks in the end, people in the department came to the conclusion that there was not much Haynes could have done.

"There was no blaming, there was nobody to point the finger at," Hayes said. "It was a sad and unfortunate thing, and from what I remember there was no second-guessing of, 'Well, if Beth would have done this,' or, 'If Beth would have done that.' Beth got there and was ambushed.

"We don't teach officers to go to war, not on the streets of America. You teach officers to be safe and to provide good service. I don't think we want to teach officers as if it's a war zone because that creates its own problems. So we teach officers what we can in terms of being safe, we teach them to think on their feet, we teach them tactics. But if somebody is going to come out of the darkness and ambush you, we can't teach that."

For some on the force, the questions turned inward. Hunter is now a 23-year veteran of the department, but as a Boulder cop of less than three years then, she said Haynes' death had her wondering for a while if she was in the right place.

"They say that you will know within the first three to five years if you will stay a police officer, if being a police officer is right for you," Hunter said. "With Beth's death, the (JonBenet) Ramsey case, working graveyards and seeing so many gunshot suicides, I questioned it. I said, 'I don't know if I want to do this.'"

But Hunter stayed with the force, as did many of the officers in the department despite the tragedy of Haynes' death.

"I'm sure it put strains on marriages and relationships outside the department," Hayes said. "The good news is whatever we did in trying to heal the department, we did a pretty good job because we didn't have a mass exodus of people leaving that you might expect, or spouses or significant others saying, 'I cant do this anymore.'

"It's a calling, and thank goodness we have people who can do it because there are lots of reasons people might turn and run away."

Haynes was the last Boulder police officer killed in the line of duty, and incoming officers are told her story.

"Over time, you want to make sure that people don't forget," Hayes said.

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